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Google parent Alphabet’s multi-billion dollar investment into artificial intelligence firm Anthropic has drawn antitrust scrutiny in the United Kingdom.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating whether Alphabet’s partnership with Anthropic has resulted in a “relevant merger situation,” the consumer regulatory agency said Tuesday. And, if so, the CMA is looking to probe whether that would result in a “substantial lessening of competition.”
An Anthropic spokesperson said the company intends to cooperate with the agency and to give them with a “complete picture” of Google’s investment and commercial collaboration.
“We are an independent company and none of our strategic partnerships or investor relationships diminish the independence of our corporate governance or our freedom to partner with others,” the spokesperson said.
Read more: Big AI is finally on the antitrust hot seat. Here’s what that means
Last October, Google agreed to invest up to $2 billion in Anthropic, a rival to Microsoft-backed OpenAI founded by some of the company’s former employees. The investment included $500 million upfront, as well as $1.5 billion in additional funding over time. Even prior to the investment, Google already had a reported 10% stake in the company.
Other major partners include Amazon, which said it would invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic. Amazon also has a minority ownership position in the AI startup.
In March, Anthropic unveiled its new family of AI models, Claude 3, which is accessible on Amazon Bedrock and Google Cloud’s Vertex AI. Claude 3 includes Opus, branded as its “most intelligent model,” which Anthropic said outperformed Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s GPT-4 in a range of tasks.
The CMA has launched a crackdown on big tech deals and investments. The agency said earlier this month that it’s investigating Microsoft’s “acqui-hiring” deal with Inflection AI — a deal that U.S. regulators were reportedly already scrutinizing. The CMA is also probing Anthropic’s partnership with Amazon.
The regulator has opened up a comment period through August 13, after which it will make a decision on whether to move forward with further investigation.